{"id":3406,"date":"2022-03-29T12:32:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T17:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2022-03-29T14:51:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T19:51:55","slug":"2022wcfellows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/2022\/03\/2022wcfellows\/","title":{"rendered":"Scholars of economic justice from varied disciplines expand on Wendland-Cook Program\u2019s mission in Academic Fellows Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Academic-Fellows-Forums-FB-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3415 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Academic-Fellows-Forums-FB-1-650x545.png\" alt=\"2022 Wendland-Cook Academic Fellows Forums\" width=\"650\" height=\"545\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Academic-Fellows-Forums-FB-1-650x545.png 650w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Academic-Fellows-Forums-FB-1-300x251.png 300w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Academic-Fellows-Forums-FB-1-768x644.png 768w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Academic-Fellows-Forums-FB-1.png 940w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time in its history, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.religionandjustice.org\/\">Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice<\/a> has accepted three scholars into its year-long <a href=\"https:\/\/www.religionandjustice.org\/fellows\">fellowship program<\/a>, which focuses on matters relating to the intersections of religion, economic justice, class and labor, and environmental justice. The previous cohort in 2020 had a single fellow. During his fellowship, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.austincollege.edu\/jeremy-posadas\/\">Jeremy Posadas<\/a>, the John F. Anderson Chair of Christian Thought and associate professor of religious studies at Austin College, focused on how ecology and economics are linked, and the connections between what exploits the planet and what exploits people. This year\u2019s three fellows are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/assets.speakcdn.com\/assets\/2774\/choi-cv-2021_november.pdf\"> Jin Young Choi<\/a>, Baptist Missionary Training School Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cuny.edu\/faculty\/directory\/chaumtoli-huq\/\">Chaumtoli Huq<\/a>, associate professor of law at CUNY School of Law<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.childrensdefense.org\/proctor_leaders\/sinclair-charlene\/\"> Charlene Sinclair<\/a>, the founding director of the Center for Race, Religion, and Economic Democracy (C-RRED) and the program coordinator for the Interfaith Organizing Initiative<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sinclair and Huq are scheduled to give a free lecture via Zoom on <a href=\"https:\/\/vanderbilt.zoom.us\/meeting\/register\/tJcof-CqrD0iH9zjKKalY5yGBUf0L6NA2tMX\">March 28<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/vanderbilt.zoom.us\/meeting\/register\/tJcpde-uqj4jHtJWoODV89oy2pK6jb_RFKNp\">April 4<\/a>, respectively, that is open to the public. Members of the public are encouraged to register for the lectures at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.religionandjustice.org\/events\">Wendland-Cook Program website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The academic fellowship program provides fellows the support necessary for research and writing, and engagement with a community of scholars and students investigating matters of economic and ecological justice. Each successive cohort of fellows builds a broader professional network of scholars contributing work to this intersection of religion, economics, and ecology. The requirements for each fellow include: a written piece for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.religionandjustice.org\/interventions\"><em>Interventions<\/em><\/a>, facilitating a training on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.religionandjustice.org\/exchanges\"><em>Exchanges<\/em><\/a> platform, facilitating a discussion with Wendland-Cook Program student fellows at one of their weekly colloquies, and giving a public lecture on their research interest.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3407\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3407\" style=\"width: 198px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Choi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3407\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Choi-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Jin Young Choi, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins and Baptist Missionary Training School Professorial Chair in Biblical Studies at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Choi-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Choi-429x650.jpg 429w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Choi.jpg 634w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3407\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Jin Young Choi, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins and Baptist Missionary Training School Professorial Chair in Biblical Studies at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Choi\u2019s February 28 public lecture, titled \u201cRace, Political Economy, and Biblical Interpretation,\u201d focused on using the intersection of race and economy to interpret the Bible and bring change to the discourse and discipline of biblical studies. She shared her reflections on what biblical and theological resources could be used to address issues of class, labor and economic justice. \u201cKorean <em>minjung<\/em> theology, which emerged in the 1970s, argued that God is the God of the oppressed and Jesus sides with <em>minjung<\/em>, or \u2018the masses.\u2019 We see today\u2019s <em>minjung<\/em> across the globe, from the Filipino nurses that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 to the 1.6 million Ukrainian women refugees,\u201d Choi says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a person of faith and a teacher-scholar, I\u2019m committed to raising minoritized scholars\u2019 voices in white-dominated biblical scholarship. When we approach intersectionality, we mainly focus on race and gender\/sexuality. But I have found what is often missing is socioeconomic inequality in religious discourses or theological analyses,\u201d says Choi, who is also an alumna of the Vanderbilt University Graduate Department of Religion (PhD \u201913, MA \u201910). As an immigrant from Korea, she is interested in how imperialism and white supremacy have been interconnected in the historical legacies of everything from settler colonialism to genocide to chattel slavery and segregation to the prison industrial complex.<\/p>\n<p>All three 2021-2022 Wendland-Cook Academic Fellows are women. \u201cWe want to make it clear that whatever we do in this program is intersectional. It is always related to gender, ethnic, and sexual justice, considering the issue of labor is highly minoritized and affecting women in particular ways,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/divinity.vanderbilt.edu\/people\/bio\/joerg-rieger\">Joerg Rieger<\/a>, founding director of the Wendland-Cook Program, Distinguished Professor of Theology, and Cal Turner Chancellor\u2019s Chair of Wesleyan Studies.<\/p>\n<p>The fellowship program brings both academic research and community organizing together in a space that allows mutual learning between the fellows and Wendland-Cook Program researchers and students. Though the fellowship only lasts a year, Rieger says the goal of the fellowship program is to develop an ongoing relationship with all fellows that brings conversations about religion and economics or labor to arenas where they are less known.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need discourse on economics, class and labor in conjunction with the current questions about race and gender,\u201d says Rieger. His forthcoming book, <em>Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity<\/em>, argues that race and gender questions cannot be solved without simultaneously solving the economics question, and includes a concluding chapter on reparations.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3408\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3408\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Charlene_Sinclair.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3408\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Charlene_Sinclair-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Charlene Sinclair is the founding director of the Center for Race, Religion, and Economic Democracy (C-RRED) and the program coordinator for the Interfaith Organizing Initiative. \" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Charlene_Sinclair-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Charlene_Sinclair-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Charlene_Sinclair.jpg 306w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3408\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Charlene Sinclair is the founding director of the Center for Race, Religion, and Economic Democracy (C-RRED) and the program coordinator for the Interfaith Organizing Initiative.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sinclair has worked since the 1980s on economic justice through community organizing, which led to investigating \u201cwhy deeply impoverished and oppressed people work for justice, even at great risk to themselves.\u201d Her <a href=\"https:\/\/vanderbilt.zoom.us\/meeting\/register\/tJcof-CqrD0iH9zjKKalY5yGBUf0L6NA2tMX\">lecture on March 28<\/a> will ask whether movements of resistance demanding justice in response to Black death are performing projects of justice while rearticulating and concealing systems of injustice and death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether it is biblical studies or the nature of God, these are also cultural and ideological questions that frame whether people move towards or against justice,\u201d says Sinclair, who also serves as a lay minister at the AME Zion Church on the Hill in New York City. \u201cPeople don\u2019t give them the import that they ought to. We can\u2019t talk about justice unless we align it with people\u2019s beliefs about the nature of God and what God calls us to do. This work is critical in justice-making.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3409\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3409\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Huq.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3409\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Huq-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Chaumtoli Huq is an Associate Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law \" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Huq-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Huq-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-my\/my-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1109\/2022\/03\/Huq.jpg 413w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3409\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chaumtoli Huq is an Associate Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Huq started with justice-making in the immigrant taxi driver community, working with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytwa.org\/\">New York Taxi Workers Alliance<\/a> around the time of the 9\/11 attacks, which embodied the intersection of immigrant communities and faith communities. Many Alliance members are South Asian and\/or Muslim. Following 9\/11 those taxi drivers lost income, not only because most of their fares came from lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center area that was destroyed, but also because their independent contractor employment status excluded them from federal disaster relief funds. In addition to this financial stress, the Islamophobia that ensued created another obstacle in providing these taxi drivers legal protections and employment relief.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWorkers have a religious identity. Who is paying attention to how labor rights intersects with this religious identity?\u201d says Huq, who is the founder\/editor of a non-profit focused on law and social justice called <a href=\"https:\/\/lawatthemargins.com\/\">Law@theMargins<\/a>. In her <a href=\"https:\/\/vanderbilt.zoom.us\/meeting\/register\/tJcpde-uqj4jHtJWoODV89oy2pK6jb_RFKNp\">lecture on April 4<\/a>, she will discuss her decade-long work supporting low-wage worker organizing and Muslim organizing to explore whether faith plays a role in the formation of a working class identity, how Muslim workers have organized for labor rights and the role unions have played, if any, in organizing this community of workers.\u00a0 She will also reflect on how Islam\u2019s emphasis on economic justice can be valuable for reimagining broader labor rights for all workers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWorkers have a religious identity. Who is paying attention to how labor rights intersects with this religious identity?\u201d -Chaumtoli Huq, associate professor of law at CUNY School of Law<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI have not seen a unique fellowship like this one \u2013 it is curating conversations strategically and intentionally, which can be the seeding of new potential ideas. I am excited to see what is catalyzed from this gathering [of these particular scholars] because I see a deficit of imagination in social justice movements \u2013 we still can\u2019t get a $15\/hour federal minimum wage, for example.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/divinity.vanderbilt.edu\/people\/bio\/aaron-stauffer\">Aaron Stauffer<\/a>, the Vanderbilt Divinity School\u2019s Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow working with the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice and interim director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/divinity.vanderbilt.edu\/lifelonglearning\/\">Lifelong Learning<\/a> program, says that one of the greatest gifts these fellows give is their time and hard-earned wisdom gained from years of organizing and thinking intentionally about these urgent societal issues. \u201cThough the fellowship program is intended to support and connect these scholars, VDS students and those who attend the public forums have the tremendous chance to learn from them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is what theological education at VDS does best and can equip students to do \u2013 solid Biblical scholarship, top-notch reflection at the intersection of theology and community organizing, and the unique chance to delve into the strategies on how to build deep interreligious solidarity for the 99 percent of us who must work for a living.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in its history, the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice has accepted three scholars into its year-long fellowship program, which focuses on matters relating to the intersections of religion, economic justice, class and labor, and environmental justice. The previous cohort in 2020 had a single fellow. During his fellowship, Jeremy Posadas,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9344,"featured_media":3415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,14,6,1],"tags":[1118,1119,1120,222,728,1117,433,1115,1114,659,112,1110,1116,1109],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creating-change","category-events","category-feature","category-news","tag-charlene-sinclair","tag-chaumtoli-huq","tag-community-organizing","tag-ethics","tag-fellowship","tag-jin-young-choi","tag-justice","tag-labor","tag-law","tag-racism","tag-religion","tag-religion-and-justice","tag-rights","tag-wendland-cook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3416,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}